There’s been a lot of talk in the BusinessCar office this past week about on-sale dates, in particular what the different car makers mean by this and what regular car buyers think it means. Obviously the two rarely marry.
Some car manufacturers use the technical version of on-sale, which means they’ve issued a price list and you can put a deposit down for a car.
But hang on, if you’ve ever dealt with the more expensive end of the motor trade then you don’t really need a price list for a dealer to take a deposit. All you need is an article in a glossy car mag saying that in future there will be a new model from such-and-such brand and dealers will take your money, and should such a car be built in the future you’ll get their first example.
Other car makers claim the on-sale date is when they get first cars into dealers. But again, all this means is that you can see the car in a dealer – it could still be a concept car at that stage.
What we at BusinessCar, and I suspect most of the car buying public (or indeed business) use, is the date when you can pay the full amount for a car and it’s delivered to your work or home.